


We Go On (It Was Only Texting)

by PoppyAlexander



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Episode: s04e02 The Lying Detective, Fix-It, M/M, Missing Scene, Not A Prediction But If I'm Right I Want Credit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-09-16 21:50:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9291041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoppyAlexander/pseuds/PoppyAlexander
Summary: How did Sherlock know it was only texting?





	

**Author's Note:**

> I guess there's disagreement about the scene in 221B. My reading of it is that John says, "I cheated on her. What, no clever reply?" to Sherlock. Then, he turns his body and speaks directly to "Mary," who we know is in his imagination. It would sound bonkers indeed for him to have this entire imaginary conversation aloud, with Sherlock sitting there in his chair, hence we can deduce (!) that everything between him and Mary was not heard by Sherlock, until they re-engage when John begins weeping. That's why John would wonder how Sherlock knew it was only texting; he didn't say that bit aloud.
> 
> (I hate explaining my fic this way because it makes me sound like I'm condescending to readers but this show is such a convoluted mass-hallucination I suppose perhaps explanation is warranted.)
> 
> *

_TXT from JW: Hey._

_Hey._

John was nearly finished his wedge of only-adequate-but-acceptable chocolate cake when he realised.

His fork hovered momentarily in front of his partly-open mouth and he felt his eyes widen, but determinedly made a quick recovery, carried on. There wasn’t much conversation beyond small talk, which was for once a relief instead of a bore. Molly’s small smiling mouth was pretty as ever, and she chattered in a stream-of-consciousness manner that John might once have read as nervousness but now recognized as a sign of her at comfortable ease. She was friendly and they were at that moment nothing more than three friends eating birthday cake around a tiny square table in a café. The fact of Sherlock’s need for minders surrounded them like mist that wouldn’t dissipate, and dampened every passing moment, but it was a worthwhile cause and they’d soldier on.

Once they’d finished, Molly gathered up crumpled paper serviettes and stacked the little plates, returning them to the young man behind the counter, smiling appreciation at him and completely missing the way he showed his teeth, made a joke that invited her to keep chatting. She returned to the table, where John and Sherlock were shrugging into coats—she helped Sherlock drag one sleeve up his arm when he winced at the motion—and John cleared his throat, rolled his fingers against his palm.

“Know what, Molly, I’ll stay,” he said. “I’ll stay and sit a while.”

“Oh. But Rosie?” Molly frowned.

“With Mrs Hudson; almost certainly sleeping. If not, we’ll hear about it. She’s got excellent lungs.”

“Rosie or Mrs Hudson?” Sherlock put in, smirking.

“Hm. Both, as it turns out. Anyway, it’s fine. Go on and have a chat with that fella can’t take his eyes off you.” John tipped his chin and Molly reflexively turned to look at the counter-man, then away again, her cheeks going a bit pink.

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah, of course.” Quick but sincere embraces were exchanged and John motioned for Sherlock to go ahead of him. Two right turns and they were once again on their way up the stairs to 221B. John shut the door to the landing and before they’d even got their coats off, he said. “ _How_ did you know it was only texting?”

Sherlock’s stitched eyebrow rose. “Hmm?” He went straight for the kettle, fetching down two cups and saucers from the cupboard above it.

“Earlier, I said I cheated on Mary and you didn’t have a clever response, then I made a fool of myself, and then we went and had cake. But on the way out the door you said it was only texting. How did you know that?”

“Oh,” Sherlock said with a shrug, keeping his back to John as he fiddled needlessly with spoons and tea sachets, rattling the cups as he spun them just so on their saucers, “Deduced it.”

“That’s a lie.” John, keeping his distance, crossed his arms over his chest. When Sherlock didn’t reply, he said again, more forcefully, leaving no room for misinterpretation of his intent, “You’re lying.”

 Sherlock went still. “Excellent deduction, John.”

“So how.”

In a smooth single motion, Sherlock lifted his mobile from his shirt’s breast pocket, stroked it to life, turned his body as he tapped its screen twice, and held it out for John to take.

 

_TXT from JW: Can’t seem to stop thinking about you despite myself._

_Is that so?_

_TXT from JW: If it’s a problem I can try to stop. ????_

_Of course it’s not a problem._

_TXT from JW: Was hoping you’d say that. :)_

John unfolded his arms and stepped forward to the edge of the kitchen table to receive Sherlock’s phone.

 

_TXT from JW: Trying to get through an Andrew Vachss novel but can’t stay with it more than a few sentences at a time. Read anything interesting lately?_

_Currently I’m rereading Samuel Beckett’s Trilogy._

_TXT from JW: No small undertaking!_

_Well I am a bit of a genius._

_TXT from JW: Ha!_

_Everyone says so._

_TXT from JW: Brains and looks. The total package! ;)_

_Are you flirting with me?_

_TXT from JW: I was hoping so! LOL Am I that out of practice?_

 

John didn’t need to scroll far to recognise what he was seeing. “What is this? How did you get this?” he demanded. Sherlock turned, saucers poised in each hand, and set their tea on the table. “What the bloody hell is this? Explain.” John tried to find how to delete the text chain but Sherlock’s phone was just different enough to his own that he couldn’t manage it. Sherlock’s fingers appeared to pinch at the mobile and John let him take it.

 

_TXT from JW: The middle of the night has never been my best time. Makes me maudlin._

_I like it. Quiet. Cover of darkness for nefarious deeds._

_TXT from JW: Give a man ideas, why don’t you?_

_Am I?_

_TXT from JW: Cheeky. You know you are._

_Ah, but if you’d prefer your mope. . ._

_TXT from JW: Don’t you dare._

 

“I thought you knew it was me,” he said, soft and tentative as he’d been most of the afternoon. John studied his face. His eyes were shining again; the one with its blood-flooded sclera was drooping a bit, wanting to close.

“No. It was a woman. That woman on the bus—her name was. . .ah. . .’E’—with the ginger hair and the accent. She gave me a number and we started texting.” John leaned with both hands on the back of the chair in front of him even as Sherlock sat.

“Not _my_ number?” Sherlock prompted, frowning, tapping with his thumbs.

“Of course not your bloody number.”

“Some kind of anonymiser,” Sherlock mused, half to himself. “An app or call-forwarding service. Whoever she was, she arranged it so you were sending those texts to me.” He corrected himself. “To my phone.”

 

_It’s been too long._

_TXT from JW: I know. Sorry._

_Miss you._

_TXT from JW: You’re up late._

_Or early._

_TXT from JW: Night owl?_

_Vampire._

_TXT from JW: :)_

 

“Why would someone do that?” John huffed. Sherlock lay the mobile on the table between their two places, glaring backlit evidence of John’s infidelity to the mother of his infant child.

“I don’t know,” Sherlock admitted. “Worth looking into, someone playing a game with me.”

“With me!” John protested.

“Both of us,” Sherlock said. “Probably. But why?”

John yanked out the chair and sat, shooting the mobile an accusing look. It surrendered by going dim, then fully dark.

“I can see you’re ramping up to make this into The Case of the Text-Based Honey Trap,” John said. “But.” He was so wrung out, so exhausted. He longed for his old bed, just a quick trudge up the stairs from where he sat. With any luck his daughter—who preferred to sleep angelically for childminders and save her burning need to walk the floor after midnight for her dear old daddy—would sleep on through until morning, and he could sink away into dreamless dark for six entire hours. Eight.

 

_TXT from JW: Trying to imagine your room._

_The usual. Bed. Drawers. Window. Lamps._

_TXT from JW: Are you in bed now?_

_Not in but on._

_TXT from JW: Legs stretched out with crossed ankles, I’m thinking. Bare toes._

_Spot on. You’re getting rather good at this._

_TXT from JW: A pretty picture._  
_TXT from JW: Hold the thought? Must go for a bit._  
_TXT from JW: Sorry. Bad timing._

“This is just. . .” John said. “Why did you go along, if you knew it was me?” His gut was unsettled and he sipped the tea but found it difficult to swallow and had to concentrate in order to manage it. He stared at the tabletop. “Let me flirt and ramble through all those late nights. Sleep deprived. I was raving.”

Sherlock kept silent. His thumb stroked the rim of his saucer but otherwise he was still.

“Taking the piss,” John accused, knowing even as he said the words that it wasn’t true. “I thought I was texting with a cute Scottish girl and all along I was only texting with an idiot.”

 

_TXT from JW: Lately, more often lately, I worry I’m not a good man. A good person._

_You are a good man._

_TXT from JW: It’s kind of you to say._

_I consider you to be the best man I’ve ever met._

_TXT from JW: I think there’s something wrong with me. I try to ignore it but it’s difficult._

_I knew you were good the moment I first set eyes on you.  
Are you still there?_

_TXT from JW: Yes. Still here._

_What do you need from me?_

_TXT from JW: Nothing.  
TXT from JW: Not nothing. I mean, just this. This is fine._

_It doesn’t feel like enough._

_TXT from JW: No, it doesn’t.  
TXT from JW: I’m going to go, before I say something that causes complications._

_I live for complications._

_TXT from JW: I guess, given. . .this. . .maybe I do as well._

_It would seem we are a perfect match._

John raised his cup to his lips again but knew he would not be able to choke down another swallow. His gut was a hollow barrel full of pointed, restless beasts. Sherlock was so still, so calm it radiated off him as surely as his mania had done earlier, and John felt comfortably weighted—enveloped—as if by a heavy blanket. Gaze still fixed straight ahead of him on his tea cup, in his peripheral vision John could see Sherlock’s hand resting palm-down beside his saucer, only his thumb gently gliding forward and back. _It’s gone before you know it._

John, unable to fight for a single second longer, unwilling to waste another moment of his ridiculous life, lifted his chin and turned his eyes. Sherlock’s met them, his expression soft and expectant.

John wanted to clear his throat but didn’t. “I’m tired, Sherlock. Just tell me: what now?”

“We go on.”

**Author's Note:**

> "You must go on. I can't go on. I'll go on." --Samuel Beckett, "The Unnameable"


End file.
